Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 8:19:35
From: Timothy S. Shipman

So it looks as though it's going to be one of those days, at work....slower than death. Did, in fact, receive the message that you called, but got it pretty late, and of course forgot to call you back on Sunday. I imagine it had something to do with the work you had in mind for me.

So did you manage to have a good Thanksgiving?

As for me, I went over and visited with Chris Reed and Lyzbeth for a short time before meeting-up with the folks, to go eat at the White Tiger, a new incarnation in an old restaurant location at 3rd & Mass Av NE. It has been everything from Man In The Green Hat to Cafe Capri, where I used to deliver pizza to Bangcok Orchid to its present moniker...

Tim

TYPE IN A SUBJECT HEADING IF FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO SYNCHRONIZE, oops, sorry for the shouting that this ALL CAPS typing infers, but as I was saying, than to synchronize with all the other notes lining the mailboxed and defrocked worlds of chat and the chatted on my hard drive and yourn.

Shared a pretty decent meal and some idle conversation to make Thanksgiving par for a small group of bogeys that we've reluctantly become. Epstein came over (I hadn't seen him since your birthday bash at the IRISH TIMES a few marches ago), and we plus Allie and an old college chum of BB's named Kevin Kelly burst our collective guts next door. I'd churned together a rather nifty pineapple dressing which Bob stuffed into his 12 pound turkey to complement the quite meaty well-received crab casserole I almost finished up for breakfast this morning. To top it all off Blum served pumpkin pie and whipped cream he'd mashed together from scratch, yes, from scratch both the pie and the whip, including a superb flakier than storebought crust. And I don't even like pumpkin pie, but Bob's is the best I can imagine. I think somebody cracked a pilgrim joke. A few Ben Franklin fuck and fart proudly references. Got to love the literate crowd that breeds around Blum. A belch and a rollover. Some beer. Some wine. Some after dinner coffee. It was pure November cosmos, whimper, laugh tracks, and rust. I should have brought over one of my poinsettias to kick the table appeal up a notch, but it wasn't my call, and Blum doesn't take too kindly to suggestion, not mine anyway...

Later Epstein followed me back to the Dollhouse, hijacking my computer for the next couple of hours to web wonk before squeezing directions out of me in dogged pursuit of TRAX for hetero night, the ever evasive holiday lay, and mad rocker life at 29. I then doubled back over to Bob's for another slice of pie and a few purge scenes on the telly before yawning back out the door again, glad the holiday slurf was finally over, done with, and dutifully repackaged as recent past only a couple of crude snapshots can truly bring back to life. I should have insisted on a group fotoplasty, but in weakness of will I didn't.

I snag Sue from the airport tomorrow afternoon, early evening actually. Bob and Allie tie the gordian on December 5, Friday. Bob Dylan at the 9:30 Club later that evening. The following Monday I wobble into jury duty. Civilized manhood truly soaks up the free time. It's a good thing in the long term if I can fake having plenty of it, time that is, not civilized manhood. Maybe I've got that mixed up. Depends on which side of the clock you're standing behind and whose civilization we're fighting for...

GT